Avoiding Future Tense 'Will'

Grammatically speaking, tenses express the time of a state or action to indicate whether it takes place in the past, present, or future. English contains two true tenses, present and past, along with a host of others like present perfect, past perfect, and future. In professional writing, employing present tense enhances the clarity and immediacy of your message.

When writing for Write.com, stick with present tense and transform any would-be future tense into a thing of the past. An easy way to accomplish this is through eliminating the word “will” by changing the wording of a sentence while still retaining its intended meaning. Here are some examples to help you crush the “will” within any sentence:

Future: If I see someone drink an MGD 64, I will get very angry.

Present: I get angry when I see someone drink that dirty bathtub water of a beer.

Future: Kim Kardashian’s husband will wake up one day, take a hard look in the mirror, and leave that makeup-encrusted trollop for good.

Present: Kris Humphries has trouble making good marital decisions.

Just remember: try to avoid the future tense. After all, it is presumptuous to think that anything “will” happen in our unpredictable and cruel world. The dinosaurs probably had their own grandiose plans for the future, and we all know what happened there. Well…it is possible that one survived.

The future best remains the province of hover boards, dehydrated Pizza Hut, Grays Sports Almana, and a hoary scientist who insists that where he’s going there is no need for roads.